


on the dimensionality of an n-night stand

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Romano's Filthy Vocabulary, dat ass, frat boys, intoxicated sex of mutually dubious consent alluded to, minor gay crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:11:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antonio is the one night stand who just won’t leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the dimensionality of an n-night stand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rivals](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=rivals).



Lovino and Antonio meet at a party, although Lovino quickly forgets most of that night after his ninth shot of something that burns a little bit more than the others burnt. He tries to raise his eyebrows when the man who gives it to him calls it a Mind-Erasing Adios Motherfucker, but at that point even the desire to impress the hot guy he’d been talking to for an hour isn’t strong enough to control Lovino’s motor functions. He downs the thing and wonders, belatedly, if that was a bad idea.

The next thing Lovino knows it is morning. He knows this because the sun is out and focusing all of its strength into his defenseless, half-open eyes.

Lovino is never drinking again.

He is never, ever, drinking again.

Lovino is a freshman, and Italian, and will probably break that promise as soon as he goes home tomorrow for dinner with his family. Nonno thinks wine is an acceptable replacement for water, if he hasn’t already gone and decided that they’re interchangeable. Because of that Lovino is usually pretty good with alcohol.

Parties, however, are another thing entirely and if Lovino could think something other than, ‘I swear to the Virgin I am never drinking again,’ he would think, ‘why the fuck did I go to this fucking party again oh sweet merciful San Gennaro my _head_.’ Then he would throw up. But his head hurts too much to move, so instead he lies where he is and he doesn’t think about how frat parties are an all-around bad idea.

Freshmen get invited to these parties sometimes, if they know somebody, or if they know somebody who knows somebody, or if they’re a chick in a tight shirt. Lovino is none of the above, and was none on Thursday when some random guy came up to him and shoved a flyer in his face. The flyer turned out to be a ticket, or something, and Lovino decided to throw caution to the wind and cashed it in.

College is about connections, and freshmen like Lovino don’t get invited to parties very often, especially not at Tri-Sigma. It was an opportunity for better things.

He danced a little, talked a little, drank a lot, and probably did something after that. Lovino doesn’t know. It hurts too much to know things.

It doesn’t hurt too much to realize there is something strange and tingly happening below his belt area, and he cranes his neck to observe that tingly something as slowly and as delicately as he can.

That something is a mouth, making light choking noises. It is attached on one end to someone with dark brown hair. That someone probably has other features, but Lovino can only handle so much sensory input at once, thank you. The mouth is attached on the other end to Lovino’s cock.

Lovino screams.

He regrets that decision when the person with the hair and the mouth starts screaming as well and the sound waves make their way up to Lovino’s poor, delicate ears.

Lovino is never, ever, ever drinking again.

He regrets a little bit more when the other person begins to speak, much too fast and much too loud, “I woke up two seconds ago, I promise, I don’t normally wake people up like that,” and the person with the hair, and the mouth, has a voice too deep to be anything other than a man with dark brown hair and a mouth no longer giving a home to Lovino’s cock and Lovino is giving up alcohol forever, Nonno be damned, “…anymore, at least.”

“Urgh.”

The man who is chipper and cheerful sits up and doesn’t stop talking. Lovino wonders if he didn’t drink anything at the party the night before, if he was smart enough not to take the Mind-Erasing Adios Motherfuckers offered to _him_ , or if he possesses a holy liver. Whichever one doesn’t matter so much because regardless of the reason, the man keeps talking, and even starts moving around, and Lovino hates him. “Are you okay? Do you need any water? You seemed a little bit out of it last night,” and here Lovino realizes just how much of last night he doesn’t remember, “but I hope you’re feeling better today.”

“Urgh.”

“I’ve got some aspirin over here.”

By the time the man gets back with a glass of water, a mug of coffee, a few tablets of aspirin, some dry toast, some sunglasses, and Lovino’s left shoe, Lovino has regained the ability to sit up without crying a little on the inside. He has also realized three things:

(1) This is not his room.  
(2) He isn’t wearing any pants, and  
(3) His ass hurts like a bitch.

He wonders if doing some form of penance now will make it so he doesn’t have to mention anything about this at his next confession. Probably not, he knows that, but that doesn’t stop him from asking, “Do you have a rosary?” in what is hopefully not a timid whiney bitch voice. Sure, Lovino is already trying to Hail Mary away what is looking to be the loss of his ass virginity, but he’s quickly regaining his senses and the guy trying to press water and meds on him is hotter than the sun trying to abuse Lovino’s eyes.

So maybe Lovino has been failing to pray away the gay for a while now, so what?

In theory, if he hadn’t done _it_ , that meant he was just… questioning? Not gay? Catching the stray gay vibes bouncing off his brother? It meant there was nothing wrong with Lovino, ignoring the fact that he spent a lot of time in high school looking at the bulges in the swim team’s speedos.

Now he can’t even pretend.

“Yes, it’s on the table next to you— does this mean— I mean—,” the man kneels down on the bed next to Lovino and blinks up with big green eyes, “do you want to go to mass with me tomorrow?”

Oh fuck the world.

“No,” Lovino tries his best to shout as quietly as possible. It ends up as an odd stage whisper, “no I don’t want to go to mass with you. Whoever you are. Where am I?”

The man’s face falls into something Lovino can’t decipher at his current mental capacity. He probably wouldn’t be able to decipher it if he weren’t hungover anyway, because it looks like one of those multi-layered emotive things that crosses Feliciano’s face once in a blue moon. But if Lovino weren’t hungover he would have tried.

“Do you,” the man pauses. “Do you remember last night?”

“Not really.”

“Nothing?”

“I was talking to somebody,” some hot somebody and wait, oh, shit, some hot somebody is a brown-haired blur in the back of Lovino’s befuddled mind who is beginning to look very familiar, “and then I drank some stuff, and then I drank some more stuff.”

All this talking makes Lovino’s head hurt more. Waking up at the frat house the night after the party means stealing any leftover booze and making a quick run of shame towards the freshmen dorms. That’s how it always looks in the movies and that’s how it’s supposed to be. But all this toast-getting, and conversation-having, and green-eyesing throw Lovino, much too much.

He grabs the sunglasses from Antonio’s hands before knocking back two pills and half the glass of water before Antonio can ask him anything else.

Antonio.

Oh.

“You’re…Antonio? Antonio something?”

Antonio beams and sets Lovino’s shoe onto the floor. He gestures for Lovino to put the sunglasses on and it takes a second for Lovino to realize that it’s for the sunlight that’s filling up the outside world. “Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. And you’re Lovino Vargas.”

“And,” Lovino doesn’t want to ask except he really, really does, “we…” he waves his hands around in a short twist and tries not to expel the contents of his stomach, “we did…?”

The nod Antonio gives is hesitant. His eyebrows draw together. “You— last night you said you wanted to,” yes, well, of course Lovino would have said that after nine ( _possibly more?_ ) shots. He would have thrown himself at someone like Antonio after nine shots, “and then you said you’d done it before,” and, yes, Lovino would have to have said that too, “and I’d had three of those Mind Erasing things Berwald made, at least, and it felt like a good idea because we have a lot in common and we were really hitting it off and I was surprised I even got to meet you at all because you brought one of Gilbert’s tickets and nobody he invites ever comes and it was nerve-wracking because I hoped you weren’t pretending to be interested but not actually interested, I mean, I don’t know how this works, and there are things you could have overheard that really aren’t true anymore but then you kissed me and we moved up here, and you said you wanted to, and you didn’t seem like you were too far gone, just a little grumpy and oh God are you angry? Did I take advantage of you?”

Sometime around _I’d had three_ Lovino closes his eyes behind the sunglasses and wishes the ground would swallow him whole. He keeps listening, though, because the things Antonio are saying are important things. They are the things that will decide whether Lovino punches Antonio in the crotch before running away in fear, or whether Lovino grabs his clothes and runs for his life out of embarrassment. The more Antonio speaks, the more Lovino is leaning towards embarrassment. His fingers twitch.

“I’m not—I—I have to go.”

Lovino leaves.

He thinks Antonio tries to stop him, but Lovino is a champion at running away from things, even if the world’s still ten times brighter than it’s supposed to be, and he makes the pantsless sprint to East Union in four minutes flat. It is a record, although Lovino doesn’t learn that until later, when he overhears some dickheads in the dining hall talking about some guy who streaked from Tri-Sigma all the way to EU. Lovino grumbles into his coffee, fiddles with the sunglasses he forgot to take off before leaving, and hopes the story dies quickly.

It isn’t as though Lovino is ever going back to Tri-Sigma. He won’t ever see Antonio again, so it doesn’t matter.

This belief is reaffirmed when Feliciano asks Lovino where he was the night before, as they head towards the train that will bring them to Nonno’s Weekly Sunday Dinners If You Don’t Come That Means You Don’t Love Me Anymore How Could You Not Love Your Nonno? Before Lovino can think things through he is telling Feliciano everything, from getting the flyer shoved at him to racing across campus.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing Feliciano says. He doesn’t even make his stupid thinking noise first, just asks.

“What do you think Nonno’s making tonight?”

“Lovino.”

Right now Lovino can’t talk about this. He can’t. “Don’t.”

“Ve…” Feliciano grabs Lovino’s arm before he can huff and stomp himself in front of a speeding car. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve heard about Antonio before from other people in the art department. He does the—ve, he sleeps—he won’t bother you, I don’t think, because he sleeps with a lot of people and then he doesn’t, ve, he’s nice to them after, but he doesn’t expect anything. You don’t need to be afraid.”

Something in Lovino’s stomach goes sour. It’s probably the coffee. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

That is, of course, a lie. But over the next week Lovino shoves the sunglasses into the back of his wardrobe and convinces himself that filling his ‘one night stand with a guy’ quota so soon into his college experience is a good thing. He has experimented. He’s been to a frat party and he’s even scored with someone who is incredibly attractive by anyone’s reckoning, all with no strings attached.

It’s an amazing deal, and Lovino is content.

For one day, Lovino is content.

Because right after that, the very next day after Lovino is completely comfortable with his life again, Antonio turns up. Lovino doesn’t see him at first, because Lovino’s thinking about Roman architecture and how his professor is as boring as fuck. Leaning against a far wall in the auditorium, Antonio isn’t terribly conspicuous either, amidst the crowd of hundreds of freshmen wandering collectively away from the lecture hall and towards the dining hall. He is significantly more conspicuous when he detaches himself from the wall and puts his hand on Lovino’s arm.

Lovino screams.

This time, Antonio just frowns. “It’s me! I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Startle is a bad word for it. Maybe the sudden contact jars Lovino, but the sight of the arm, and the body attached to it, shake him to his grave. “Wh-what do you want?”

“You didn’t call, and Gilbert said this is where he saw you,” Antonio gulps, “I wanted to see you again.”

One night stands don’t work this way. Lovino has seen a lot of movies, and in none of them do one night stands work this way. “How the fuck would I call you?”

“I gave you my number before you started drinking,” Lovino tries to speed up inconspicuously, but Antonio’s legs are longer and he doesn’t miss a beat, “and you don’t remember that, do you?” He looks saddened by this, which isn’t fair. Antonio doesn’t know anything about Lovino, or anything much, so he’s not allowed to bitch. Not even with his expressive green eyes.

( _Lovino switches to a light jog immediately. Antonio keeps pace._ )

“Ah. Do you want me to get your books? I can carry them for you, ah,” Antonio fumbles for the textbook Lovino is holding loosely. Nobody in their right mind gives a nigh-on complete stranger a book that cost them over a hundred bucks, though, so Lovino shoves Antonio’s hands away. “Or we can walk.”

They walk. Lovino doesn’t have any more classes, so his feet lead him back to the entrance to EU. It’s only when he’s swiping his keycard that Lovino realizes he’s effectively taking Antonio back to his room. Alone. Together. He wonders what Antonio thinks is going to happen next. Whatever it is, Lovino isn’t going to stand for any of it. “Look, I’ve got your glasses in my room and I can give them back to you now.” And then Antonio can fuck off and stop making Lovino’s life so complicated.

“Glasses?”

“The sunglasses.” Antonio shrugs, blankly, and Lovino wants to punch him. “That’s why you’re talking to me,” he forces past his gritted teeth. There can be no other reason why Antonio showed up at Lovino’s lecture. No possible reason. Unless Antonio thinks Lovino is really that easy.

“No?”

“What?”

“I’m not talking to you because of sunglasses? What sunglasses?”

A girl snaps at Lovino for letting cold air into the building. He doesn’t snap back at her because he doesn’t snap at girls, mostly, and because she’s pretty. He flees into the stairwell, aware of Antonio following his footsteps. “The ones you gave me! And you can fucking save it, I know how you work. I was—I’m not stupid, dammit. Everybody knows.” If Feliciano knows then everybody in the fucking _world_ has to know. “It’s fine with me. You don’t have to pretend whatever you’re trying to pretend because I’m new here.”

Antonio pulls on Lovino’s sleeve as they reach the right landing. “I’m really not pretending anything.”

“Start pretending then.”

The hallway on the fifth floor is quiet, probably because most students are in class or getting something to eat. Antonio looks around wearing something a lot like wonder. “I haven’t been in here in forever.”

“H-how long?”

Before he can speak, Antonio stops himself. Lovino doesn’t want to know what the catch means, but Antonio is barreling on soon enough, “I saw one of the lower floors on a tour before I was a freshman. That was… four years ago now?”

“You’re older than I am.”

Lovino did not plan on saying that. On the list of things his brain planned for the awkward pause after Antonio trailed off, that answer was low. He intended to say something about how Antonio didn’t miss much by choosing to join a frat, or something about not touching the walls because they’re disgusting. But Lovino did think it, what he said, because why would a senior take so much interest in him, in Lovino?

“Am I?” Antonio bites his lip, “Or—is this EU?”

Lovino nods.

“EU is just for freshm—are you—oh s—oh.” Antonio rubs the back of his neck, and Lovino is sure this is the last time they will meet. What Antonio was getting at before sounded suspiciously as though he was hitting on Lovino, on Lovino of all people, and even though Lovino knows he’s a fucking good catch, and sexy, and manly, and really hot, like a stallion, he also knows that upperclassmen aren’t as likely to see that. “I guess I am, Lovi. Can I call you that?”

“No.”

“You can call me Toño if you want.”

Antonio bumps Lovino’s shoulder with his shoulder. Lovino jumps. “I don’t.” He power walks the rest of the way to his door and fumbles for his keys. All he needs to do is get to the sunglasses and get Antonio to go away. It doesn’t seem like such a difficult task, but Lovino’s hands are shaking and Antonio’s eyes have gained a sparkle. Lovino doesn’t like the fucking look of that fucking sparkle.

“Am I…” The door opens on Lovino’s third try and he flings himself across the room and towards his wardrobe. Antonio leans against the doorframe as though it were made for the purpose. “Is something wrong?”

Yes. Yes, something is wrong. Lovino’s hand closes around the pair of sunglasses that somehow migrated down to his underwear drawer, turns, and unloads.

“Why are you fucking following me, asking me a horde of goddamn idiotic questions like we’re friends or—or anything?! Who the fuck do you think you are? Why should I _ever_ have to see your face again?”

“I—”

“And who the fuck do you think _I_ am? I’m not some desperate slut you can hook up with like that just because you think I’m easy!”

Lovino sends the glasses flying and doesn’t stop, not even when Antonio starts trying to explain himself.

“I don’t think—”

“Yeah that’s right, you’re the easy one, aren’t you?” As soon as he says it, Lovino wishes he could take it back. But he can’t. “Th-there are your glasses. Get out.”

He shuts the door quickly and hopes Antonio doesn’t do anything stupid like linger, and doesn’t.

Antonio doesn’t either.

But he’s outside Architecture 101 again the next day, and Lovino almost trips in surprise. He is still slightly angry that Antonio won’t let enough be enough. Most of Lovino is apologetic, though, in a way he can’t yet voice. So he lets his actions speak for him and doesn’t sprint through the doors while Antonio wades through the crowd. Hopefully they won’t have to talk about the day before. Lovino can handle Antonio’s perseverance as long as they don’t have to talk about the day before.

They don’t.

This time Antonio has coffee, for Lovino and himself. Lovino takes the cup offered to him without a fuss and says, “it’s too sweet.” The look in Antonio’s eyes is a little harder to decipher as he jogs with Lovino during Lovino’s rush to his next class, but Lovino’s belated “and thanks” is enough to make Antonio smile.

Nonno always says to be cautious of the ladies scorned; the saying might not have been intended for the men insulted, but Lovino knows how to be careful. Or he thought he did, before the night at Tri-Sigma, before the morning after, before he started wondering what it would have been like to meet Antonio without anybody’s dicks in anybody else’s mouths.

As they move, they talk about how Antonio needs to fuck off. There is caution for someone’s feelings and then there is caution for Lovino’s own goddamn safety. It isn’t normal for a Tri-Sig to suddenly take an interest in a guy like Lovino unless Lovino’s about to end up upside-down on a flagpole. They talk about how Antonio is creepy, and Lovino is only barely 18, and how Antonio shouldn’t know Lovino’s class schedule like this.

And the weather.

They also talk about the weather. It’s… nice.

When they reach Lovino’s class Antonio stops and taps Lovino on the shoulder. He says, “later, Lovino,” and walks away. Lovino wonders why seniors apparently don’t have any classes. He also wonders if Antonio’s now sticking around out of spite.

The day after that, as Lovino speedwalks and Antonio just walks a little faster than he normally does, they talk about aqueducts. Lovino knows there is a party at Tri-Sigma again, and he tries to hint that Antonio should get back to picking up bedpost-notches or however the hell he counts them. Antonio has the gall to chuckle attractively, low in his throat, striking a chord that resonates up and down Lovino’s spine. He punches the arm of Antonio’s jacket, right over the three Greek letters stitched in white, and doesn’t realize that he is jealous.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go with me? We’re supposed to bring someone to this one.”

“I’ve got better things to do.”

Later that night Lovino is in the library, because his own little brother has sexiled him from their room. Lovino didn’t even forget his keys this time, but the little fucker barricaded the door with something. When they first moved in, Lovino promised to sit outside the door and complain, loudly, if Feliciano ever did that, but the reality of the situation is that the moans coming from their room make Lovino want to pour detergent between his ears and shake vigorously.

So he goes to the library, and he reads about arches.

Antonio finds him around ten-thirty. He is carrying a thermos of something and if he thinks he can get Lovino drunk again so he can have his way with Lovino’s ass again, he has another few thinks coming. First off, Antonio doesn’t need to get Lovino wasted to do anything with him, because it’s Friday night and Lovino is lonely, and Feliciano is an annoyingly light sleeper. Why Lovino didn’t pitch a fit until he got a single room he’ll never know.

Second, Lovino isn’t going to sleep with Antonio again anyway, ignoring everything else, because Antonio’s being all weird and _one night stands don’t work like that_. That seems to be the only thing Lovino can think whenever he sees Antonio’s silhouette approach him. It’s aggravating, because he’d rather think about how hot Antonio is, and how Antonio has sucked Lovino’s cock. Remembering that part makes Lovino feel a lot better.

As it turns out, the thermos has hot chocolate in it.

“I promise I’m not stalking you. Your roommate told me where you were.” Antonio sits at Lovino’s table and begins to pour. There’s only one cup. “He was wrong the first two times, but after I came back the third he called somebody and did you know your grandfather has your phone GPS-tracked?”

Yes. Yes Lovino does know that, because the only time he was even close to having sex ( _before Antonio_ ), his grandfather chose that moment to come skipping over the hill with a picnic basket on one arm and Feliciano on the other. Lovino and his date were at a lake three towns over. Three, fucking, towns.

Compulsively, Lovino throws a glance over his shoulder just to make sure Nonno hasn’t decided to crash Antonio’s visit either. The stacks are mercifully empty, although it sounds a little bit like two girls are going at it over by the Geological Association of Canada’s publication back issues. Lovino huffs and shuts his book. If Antonio wanted a second night stand he could have just asked for it. “I’m not going to put out in the library, you stupid fuck, there’s _people_.”

That came out wrong.

Lovino tries again. “I mean, what I meant, you, you better just _dream_ about putting your cock up my ass in Roman Architecture, because it’s never going to happen!” He slams his fist against the table, before hesitantly patting Antonio on the back after Antonio chokes on a sip of hot chocolate. “Hey! Be careful! You could have gotten that on my notes.”

“S-sorry,” Antonio breathes, and he looks like he means it, “but what made you think I wanted to sleep with you in the library?”

This might be a very good question, but Antonio didn’t have to ask it like that. The way Antonio phrased it sounds a lot like a rejection, and hey, _Antonio_ was the one sleeping with Lovino’s cock down his throat, so. “They’re probably missing you at that stupid party,” belatedly Lovino wonders who Antonio ended up bringing as his date, “so you should get back to it. And leave me the hell alone.”

“I didn’t go. I thought we could have a picnic.” Antonio points to the thermos and nudges the cup towards Lovino. “Your roommate said you’d be really busy all weekend, but that you weren’t busy at all now, so I thought we could talk a little. My favorite color is red, what’s yours?”

Also red, but that is not the point. “What are you even doing?”

Antonio shrugs and pulls his chair closer. “Getting to know you.”

That explains nothing. That opens more questions for Lovino, really, which is incredibly inconsiderate of Antonio because now Lovino will have to spend more time asking questions and less time halfheartedly sending Antonio away. “I don’t want you to.”

“Why not?”

“Because!”

The jerk tilts his head to the side and doesn’t speak for a long while. After a point, Lovino starts to wonder if he killed Antonio with his infallible logic. “…try some hot chocolate?”

If only.

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“I made it for you.”

“No fucking way.”

The most annoying part is that the drink smells really good, and Lovino is thirsty. He could accept. He could drink, and talk to Antonio like a normal person. He could let Antonio see that this failure to one night stand thing is not getting to Lovino.

It’s getting to Lovino.

“It’s just hot chocolate. I made sure to keep it away from Gilbert when I was making it. He has this ‘spike all the liquids rule’ on Fridays, which makes breakfast weird,” no one who hasn’t met Nonno truly knows what a weird breakfast is, “but I thought you wouldn’t want to be drunk for this. Again. Not that this is going to be like last time, because it’s going to be better!”

It’s really getting to Lovino. “I’m not sl—”

Antonio waves his hands wildly and shakes his head. “That’s what I said! We can get to know each other! I don’t need to do that other stuff.”

Because they are both young, sexy, virile men, although Lovino is slightly sexier, Lovino doesn’t believe jack shit about that. It’s been over a week now and all Lovino can think about is getting to roll around in someone else’s sheets again. He doesn’t want to think about what Antonio must be thinking about. “What if _I_ want to do that other stuff?” Antonio’s eyes glaze over. “O-obviously with other people! People who aren’t you.”

First Lovino will have to find those other people. And before that he’ll have to sit Antonio down and have a nice long talk about how they’re never supposed to ever talk to each other again. Instead of opening his ears to reason, Antonio looks genuinely upset. “Did I do something wrong?”

Lovino can’t do it.

Those fucking _eyes_. “Just give me that.”

The hot chocolate is delicious, and while they drink they move on to talking about sexiling jackasses. Antonio claims he’s never sexiled anyone ever at all ever; Lovino grumbles before remembering a lot of threesome rumors, and hopes he doesn’t have to stand up before Antonio goes away. But Antonio doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere and soon Lovino is the one nodding off.

“You want me to walk you back to your place?”

“No.”

Lovino doubts Feliciano will be done with the gross crew jock muscle bastard even if it is three in the morning. At best they will be cuddling in sleep, stinking up the room. At worst… Lovino doesn’t want to think about the worst. He winces. He also expects Antonio to offer up his own bed, at Tri-Sigma, and Lovino is prepared to shoot that down as well. He doesn’t know why he keeps shooting Antonio down, other than it makes him feel a little bit more powerful than the prospect of jumping into Antonio’s arms does. Lovino is _classy_. Lovino doesn’t jump.

Not unless there are spiders.

Instead of attempting to pull Lovino back to the frat row, Antonio takes off his jacket, and then his sweater. “We can camp here then! Camping is even better than a picnic.” He balls up the jacket and shoves it in front of Lovino’s face. “I don’t think anyone will take your stuff if we’re both sleeping here.”

He is right, if only, Lovino discovers, because any would-be thieves are far more interested in feeling Antonio up than running off with Lovino’s laptop. At five in the morning Lovino stares down the third girl who tries to go for Antonio’s back pocket and gives up all hope for sleep. Naturally, if he isn’t allowed to get any rest neither is Antonio. But before Lovino can smother Antonio awake with his own jacket something underneath Lovino’s palm buzzes. It takes a few seconds for Lovino to find the phone and a few more to answer it.

“Oi! Conquistador! Have you conquisted the cradle yet like I told you to? Wh- oh, Francis says that’s not really a verb, conquisted, but what the fuck does he know, words _wish_ they could be made up by me. Hey! Hey, oi, Antonio, are you even listening?!”

Antonio is listening, because the voice on the phone is really fucking loud and it woke him up. Or maybe the sound of Antonio’s phone slamming into the desk woke Antonio up. Or maybe the sound of Lovino stomping away did the trick. Lovino doesn’t know because he doesn’t stay to find out.

That Sunday when Nonno asks if Lovino’s made any new friends he’d like to tell Nonno about, come clean boy, Lovino says he hasn’t. It is the truth: Antonio isn’t a friend. Antonio is _complicated_.

While Feliciano attempts to pass a basket of bread to Lovino, Lovino has an appropriately complicated epiphany about Antonio. Maybe, just maybe, if Lovino sleeps with Antonio again, like Antonio’s friend suggested, Antonio will realize that whatever the fuck he’s doing is stupid. And then he’ll fuck off. This time, though, Lovino would like to be the one doing the ass penetration because it’s not fair if Antonio gets to do it twice. What if Lovino likes that better, huh? Huh? He’s a man, isn’t he?

“Ve… why are you looking at the breadsticks like that, Lovi?”

Lovino blushes and asks to be excused.

On Monday he has finally stopped blushing. He waits for Antonio outside his architecture lecture for twenty minutes before coming to the conclusion that he has been stood up. It isn’t possible. After all that… after all that persistence, how could Antonio give up? In the library he didn’t look like he wanted to give up. When he walked Lovino from class to class he didn’t fucking look like he fucking wanted to give up.

With the kind of effort he rarely exerts, Lovino races to the Tri-Sigma house. If he goes any slower then he will come to his senses and realize three things:

(1) Antonio has finally done what Lovino wanted all along.  
(2) Lovino has Antonio’s number; Lovino could call instead of showing up in person, and  
(3) In reality Antonio seems nice, if crazily persistent, and Lovino wants to maybe hang out or date or something.

The third realization-that-Lovino-refuses-to-realize is horrible. Lovino tries to move faster, and almost misses Tri-Sigma in his rush. He steps up the front walk, takes a deep breath, and knocks.

A stranger answers. “Oi, who the hell are you?” Lovino shoves him aside, or tries to. The stranger is stringy but strong. He is also wearing a pirate hat and Lovino doesn’t want to know. “You can’t just run in here. We’re a secret brotherhood! We’re secret, and amazing, and there are _rules_.”

Lovino sucker punches the stranger in the gut and stumbles into the house. “I’m here for Antonio.” Here for Antonio’s ass is closer to the truth, as well as here for a condom because Lovino is too embarrassed to buy them at the school store, but the stranger in the pirate hat doesn’t need to know that. Lovino would prefer that as few people as possible learn about this visit to Tri-Sigma and the reason behind it, which is why he runs upstairs as fast as he can and locks himself in what looks to be Antonio’s room when a different stranger, arms piled with wine bottles, speaks.

“Isn’t everyone here for Antonio? …Gilbert, why are you—”

If the pictures of Antonio on the cramped desk don’t give away the room, then the rosary on the bedside table and what looks to be Lovino’s lost pair of pants nestled in a corner do. Lovino sits on the bed and hopes Antonio gets back soon. There’s an architecture paper Lovino needs to write, and he left all his books in his dorm. If it takes half an hour to have the sex, and six hours to write the paper, then if Lovino wants a decent night’s sleep Antonio needs to walk through his goddamn door within the next twenty minutes or else Lovino’s coming back again tomorrow.

Antonio walks through the door.

“Take off your pants.”

And almost walks out of it again. “L-wh-huh?”

Lovino doesn’t make eye contact. Eye contact is the enemy, and so is that fucking rosary. He shoves it into a drawer and hopes there isn’t any more religious paraphernalia scattered around the room. If Lovino looks up and stares into the weeping face of his Lord at any time while Lovino is having flaming hot sex, Lovino will spontaneously combust. He knows it. And from there he’ll probably go to Hell, and how will he explain that to Nonno?

“They said you hit Gilbert?” Pirate hat guy had it coming. “…Lovino, what?”

Antonio’s pants are still on and he doesn’t look very sexed up. Lovino needs to make this quick before he loses his nerve. “I’m going to explain this to you in a language you can understand.”

Apparently, though, the language of being dragged across a room and given a lapful of barely eighteen-year-old Italian sex bomb is not actually something Antonio is fluent in. He stutters and stumbles through the kiss, and then he turns his head. “I…what?” This is disappointing, and is also what Lovino wants to know. “I thought you would want to take things slow?”

Things? There are _no_ things. “What things? What possible things could there be? You want to fuck with me? Fine. Let’s fuck and get it over with.”

“But—”

Lovino shoves Antonio back against the bedspread before he can say anymore stupid things. As it turns out, Antonio’s objections are very weak, and very brief, and mostly to the tune of ‘are you sure?’ Lovino is sure, and irresistible, and Antonio owns more condoms than a small drugstore. That he keeps them in the drawer Lovino shoved a rosary into is only slightly scarring, and Lovino quickly forgets about that anyway.

Because he’s having sex.

Again.

Sober.

Also, he’s having sex.

Did he mention the sex?

It is only later, after Lovino is lying next to Antonio on the side of the bed closer to the window – because Lovino prefers to sleep near windows in case he gets too warm at night, and Antonio didn’t mind rolling over the other way even if he was a little reluctant about it; because, Lovino guesses, Antonio likes windows too – it is only then, that Lovino remembers the pact he made with himself earlier. Somehow, despite all of Lovino’s penetration preparation, despite all of his mental coaching, once Antonio stopped being timid about it… Lovino quickly found himself on his back and spreading his legs. Again.

And it was fucking amazing.

Fuck the world twice and make it breakfast in the morning, but Lovino prefers taking it.

Shit. Now Lovino is tired, his ass hurts _again_ , and he may or may not have his arms wrapped around Antonio’s middle, his face resting against Antonio’s chest. He is cuddling, and he wants Antonio to get on top of him again, and he must have lost all of his self-respect at that party weeks ago. Maybe he’s still drunk. “Am I still drunk?”

Antonio doesn’t answer because he’s too busy snoring. Lovino bites him.

This wakes Antonio up quickly.

“Am I still drunk?”

“…did you come straight up to my room or did you stop in at the orgy in the dining room?”

Now it is Lovino’s turn. “ _W-wh-what?_ ”

Antonio shrugs a little before doing this nibbling thing to Lovino’s ear and _oh_. “You don’t look drunk to me. Were you drinking before you got here?”

“No.” Lovino tries to stay sober during his classes because otherwise no one will ever be able to tell him and Feliciano apart. “But I—” his voice breaks and this conversation should be one of those things that’s really a bad dream, “I liked. That.”

Hazy-eyed and most likely confused since the day he was born, Antonio smiles and holds Lovino tight, and doesn’t get it. “Me too.”

Maybe it’s not something anyone has to get.

And that’s the story Lovino’s going to stick with.

\- - - - -

Lovino doesn’t like it when Antonio tells people they’re dating. This is because they aren’t dating. It has been over three months, and Lovino is surprised Antonio hasn’t gotten that through his dumbass head yet. He reminds Antonio of this every day, after Antonio finds him outside his classes. And somehow, every day, Antonio just smiles, grabs hold of Lovino’s books, and tags along.

Maybe.

Maybe they’re dating a little.

Antonio has clean shirts stashed underneath Lovino’s bed, and Lovino’s Architecture 101 textbook has been sitting on Antonio’s desk for two weeks. They’ve gone on a lot of not dates at the library, a few more around town, and a few more than a few in Antonio’s room at Tri-Sigma. Antonio has stopped bringing up Lovino’s ‘surprise visit’ and Lovino has stopped flouncing off every time someone gives Antonio a _look_ that he doesn’t even notice, the idiot.

Lovino even has his pants back.

Yeah, he thinks, maybe they’re dating a little.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a drabble for about two seconds. Prompt by [](http://rivals.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://rivals.livejournal.com/)**rivals**. The summary is what the original prompt was. Also included in that were “Romano as a freshman and Spain as an upperclassman frat boy who used to have a reputation for sleeping around a lot, but he claims now that he doesn't want that anymore,” and the whole ‘The Conquistador’ thing, which I only used in passing.
> 
> Sigma Sigma Sigma is actually a sorority.
> 
>  **Re the implied sort-of-dubcon warning:** if Lovino had been sober he would have said no. A lot. Loudly. If Lovino had been sober and slightly less repressed, he would have hit that like the angry fist of god, no questions. If Antonio had been sober he probably would have said no, [re his mission to have deeper relationships](http://kixboxer.tumblr.com/post/14500732977/on-the-dimensionality-of-an-n-night-stand). Or he might have said yes. Who knows. In the real world, getting drunk, having sex you wouldn't have had sober, and having that guy follow you around after would be creepy. Really creepy. I intentionally toned down the creepy for Lovino in the story, but I can see the bad things that might arise from this scenario.
> 
>  **Also:** I feel like I plagiarize myself with the oneliners. Like ‘oh’ and ‘well’ and ‘fuck the world’ etc etc. But the alternative would be to stop using those phrases and that would make me sad.
> 
>  **Double Also:** fucking past tense in my present tense story.
> 
>  **Triple Also:** the title used to be something else. But it didn’t make sense. So I added a parenthetical. But then the parenthetical was better than the whole. So you are left with what was in the parenthetical statement, which is why the title is a little floaty


End file.
